Abstract

This paper investigates the statistical properties of stock returns in the West African regional stock market and
the link between the West African regional stock market and economic growth. To examine the nature of the
distribution of West African regional stock returns, the daily closing prices of the two stock index of West
African regional stock market, and eighteen of it sub-indices were utilized. Nine years data from 1998 to 2007
interval were employed. The analysis of our study shows that the distribution of the West African regional stock
market returns is non-normal and non-i.i.d (independent, identically and normally distributed). The linear and
non-linear dependencies in the returns appeared to be the main reasons for the data being non-i.i.d. The study
also demonstrates the presence of the day-of-the-week effect in West African regional stock market.

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